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Just Kids: A National Book Award Winner
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Just Kids: A National Book Award Winner Paperback - 2010

by Patti Smith

Smith's evocative, honest, and moving coming-of-age story reveals her extraordinary relationship with artist Robert Mapplethorpe. Part romance, part elegy, "Just Kids" is about friendship in the truest sense, and the artist's calling.


From the publisher

WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD

"Reading rocker Smith's account of her relationship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, it's hard not to believe in fate. How else to explain the chance encounter that threw them together, allowing both to blossom? Quirky and spellbinding." -- People

It was the summer Coltrane died, the summer of love and riots, and the summer when a chance encounter in Brooklyn led two young people on a path of art, devotion, and initiation.

Patti Smith would evolve as a poet and performer, and Robert Mapplethorpe would direct his highly provocative style toward photography. Bound in innocence and enthusiasm, they traversed the city from Coney Island to Forty-Second Street, and eventually to the celebrated round table of Max's Kansas City, where the Andy Warhol contingent held court. In 1969, the pair set up camp at the Hotel Chelsea and soon entered a community of the famous and infamous, the influential artists of the day and the colorful fringe. It was a time of heightened awareness, when the worlds of poetry, rock and roll, art, and sexual politics were colliding and exploding. In this milieu, two kids made a pact to take care of each other. Scrappy, romantic, committed to create, and fueled by their mutual dreams and drives, they would prod and provide for one another during the hungry years.

Just Kids begins as a love story and ends as an elegy. It serves as a salute to New York City during the late sixties and seventies and to its rich and poor, its hustlers and hellions. A true fable, it is a portrait of two young artists' ascent, a prelude to fame.

From the rear cover

It was the summer Coltrane died, the summer of love and riots, and the summer when a chance encounter in Brooklyn led two young people on a path of art, devotion, and initiation.

Patti Smith would evolve as a poet and performer, and Robert Mapplethorpe would direct his highly provocative style toward photography. Bound in innocence and enthusiasm, they traversed the city from Coney Island to Forty-second Street, and eventually to the celebrated round table of Max's Kansas City, where the Andy Warhol contingent held court. In 1969, the pair set up camp at the Hotel Chelsea and soon entered a community of the famous and infamous--the influential artists of the day and the colorful fringe. It was a time of heightened awareness, when the worlds of poetry, rock and roll, art, and sexual politics were colliding and exploding. In this milieu, two kids made a pact to take care of each other. Scrappy, romantic, committed to create, and fueled by their mutual dreams and drives, they would prod and provide for one another during the hungry years.

Just Kids begins as a love story and ends as an elegy. It serves as a salute to New York City during the late sixties and seventies and to its rich and poor, its hustlers and hellions. A true fable, it is a portrait of two young artists' ascent, a prelude to fame.

Details

  • Title Just Kids: A National Book Award Winner
  • Author Patti Smith
  • Binding Paperback
  • Edition Reprint
  • Pages 320
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Ecco Press, New York
  • Date 2010-11-02
  • Illustrated Yes
  • ISBN 9780060936228 / 0060936223
  • Weight 0.8 lbs (0.36 kg)
  • Dimensions 8.2 x 5.3 x 0.9 in (20.83 x 13.46 x 2.29 cm)
  • Themes
    • Chronological Period: 1950-1999
    • Cultural Region: Mid-Atlantic
    • Cultural Region: Northeast U.S.
    • Geographic Orientation: New York
    • Locality: New York, N.Y.
    • Sex & Gender: Feminine
  • Library of Congress subjects New York (N.Y.), Poets, American - 20th century
  • Dewey Decimal Code B

Media reviews

Citations

  • Entertainment Weekly, 11/05/2010, Page 73
  • New York Times Book Review, 12/05/2010, Page 62
  • People Weekly, 12/06/2010, Page 61
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Just Kids : A National Book Award Winner
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Just Kids : A National Book Award Winner
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by Smith, Patti

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